Buy a CD album on Amazon, get the MP3 version free

I can’t remember the last time I bought a physical CD. I’m a big fan of music, and for years I’ve almost exclusively bought my tunes in digital, downloadable format. That’s how most of my friends and all my family members get their songs, too.

But there’s still life in the CD. The Compact Disc remains the way most people buy full albums, though the CD is in steady decline, according to Nielsen Soundscan data for 2012. 193 million CD albums were sold last year, down 13.5 percent from 2011. There were 118 million digital albums downloaded in 2012, up 14.1 percent from 2011.

Amazon.com, looking to make this transition a smoother one, is now giving the buyers of some physical CDs free, digital copies of the album’s songs, stored in an online music locker for playback.

That’s a cool service, but it gets better: Amazon got its start selling books and CDs, and that legacy plays a part in the service. Any AutoRip-eligible CDs you’ve bought from Amazon in the past, dating back to 1998, will be delivered to your online locker, which Amazon calls the Cloud Player.

For example, when I logged into the Cloud Player this morning, I was presented with a popup that said 239 songs had been added to my locker from past CD purchases.

Among the older CDs for which I now have MP3 copies: The Who’s “Tommy”, the White Stripes’ “Elephant”, Nine Inch Nails’ “Year Zero”, Los Lobos’ “The Town and the City” and, my oldest eligible purchase, BeBop Deluxe’s “Sunburst Finish”.

You can, of course, download any of these MP3s for use locally on your computer or music playing-device of your choice. And the AutoRip songs don’t count against Amazon Cloud Player storage limits.

You can get more details about AutoRip here, and you can find the long list of eligible albums here. When you’re shopping for an album on Amazon, look for the “AutoRip Eligible” logo.

While Amazon.com trails Apple’s iTunes in terms of digital music sales, Amazon’s advantage is that it still sells music in what remains – for now – the most dominant format. This convenient service is something that, for now, Apple can’t match.